And also, with residency you’re still somewhat learning and you have someone over your shoulder checking your work. You’re not quite on your own yet. While regional airlines might not be viewed with the “prestige” as the major carriers you’re still flying around up to 76 passengers. It shouldn’t be viewed as a learning experience. You should know what you’re doing by the time you get here. I’m sure the passengers wouldn’t feel comfortable if their captain and FO were using their regional airline as a residency type of experience.

I see the point about American parking airplanes if they cant staff them based off current rates...BUT... Delta has rates for the CRJ900. APC isn’t showing them for some reason but if i remember correctly the FO rates are higher than even Endeavor captain rates, and the Delta captain rates were in the 150-170 range, maybe more, i cant remember. Not that i think Delta be bringing the 900s to mainline anytime soon, but my point is that I don’t think Delta would have agreed to those rates just for the heck of it. If they do bring the 900s to the mainline certificate ill bet a pretty penny theyre still going to be making a good chunk of change off those flights. JetBlue and American both fly the E190, which isn’t much bigger than a CRJ900 and their rates are double to triple what we make. I don’t think we’ll ever see pay rates anywhere near that at any regional airline. I’m just saying there is a lot more room for pay increases (far beyond endeavor rates even) than what management would like to admit. And best believe American won’t be parking airplanes if they’re still making money off them, even if its less of a profit.

I also don’t think we can blame our crappy pay and work rules on the union so much. They might have a little say in work rules, but at the regional level pay rates are mostly market driven. That’s why up until 2-3 years ago every regional was taking concessions for 10-15 years straight. If they didn’t, they were “comaired” or their flying was given to someone else. Now we’re finally in a pilot friendly market, but maybe not as much as we’d like to believe. For example, we’re still filling classes with some of the worst pay and work rules amongst the regionals.

Another reason why regional pay is so low is because mainline rates are so high. Sure there’s always going to be the starry eyed fresh CFI who wants to fly a jet, but think about it... after a year or two nobody would be willing to fly for regional pay if that’s as good as it gets. The only reason why people are staying and we’re getting corporate and military guys in classes is because they know if they put up with the ridiculous regional management ****** it’ll pay off a few years down the road when they get to mainline. If mainline pay was similar to regional pay nobody would be filling classes right now.